Foreign father's attempts at sweet things (6,8)

'sweet things' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are plural nouns, I can't see how they can define each other.

'foreign father's attempts' is the wordplay.
'foreign' becomes 'danish' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'father's' becomes 'pa's' (pa can mean dad or father).
'attempts' becomes 'tries' ('try' can be a synonym of 'attempt').
'danish'+'pas'+'tries'='DANISH PASTRIES'

'at' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?